One was pointed out to you and you just write it off as "publicity stunt".
Yes, it was quite clear in that case that they didn't actually need investment money. They were basically just taking it to see if it worked. And the high interest rate loans were cut off very quickly.
TBH I think that's more laughable (paying high interest for publicity) than to short or hedge risk against volatile bitcoin exchange rate.
The amount of money involved was very small. There's nothing wrong with shorting or hedging against volatile exchange rates. What's idiotic is paying 100% APR to do it with zero leverage.